Tag Archives: david rakoff

Helllerrrrrrgh. I’m coming to you live from scenic San Francisco, where I am living in the Mission for the month, noting the fog, having atomic anxiety, and eating oleaginous burritos the size of my forearm for breakfast each morning. While on the phone with my mom a few days ago, I expressed concern that, as such, I might be putting my diet out to al pastor pasture. She said, “It’s all organic; it’s healthy! Don’t worry!” OKAY, WHATEVER YOU SAY, BEST MOM EVER.

I’ve also been reading a volume of Rene Ricard poems from 1979-1980 that arrived at my sublet before I did. Friends who send packages are the best. Here’s my favorite of the collection.

The rainbows on this dickpic come from prisms hung in the window—my room is very your-aunt-who-likes-to-reminisce-about-Lilith-Fair-and-also-uses-the-word-“funky”-as-a-commendation. To illustrate, please consider this tableau that I found on the mantle of the fireplace (YEAH, I have a fireplace here, WHAT OF IT? It’s not like it’s operational, but whatever. Also in my bedroom hideaway, which used to be the manager’s room in a youth hostel: a private dressing room, a weird but ultimately anodyne driftwood sculpture, a Volcano, a loft with a bed in it, and, of course, the following).

Why YES, that IS a Tori Amos thumb ring wrapped around a healing crystal sitting in its own stately li’l armchair, and yes, it’s perfectly indicative of the overall tone of my temporary homefront. I think I’m going to attempt a séance in this bitch with some of my new San Francisco pals. Will let you know if I’m able to conjure Lilith herself, or whatever other roisterous spirits happen to be knocking around the loft, during my term here.

In other recent literary forays, I just finished Cruddy by Lynda Barry and found it to be the most engrossing book I’ve read in a dog’s age, wolfed Fraud and Don’t Get Too Comfortable by David Rakoff over the past two days and appreciated the collodial way in which I find his attitudes and style popping up in my own thoughts and writing, and familiarized myself with the precise but hardy essays of Joseph Mitchell, whom I love. You should totally read his 1939 New Yorkeressay on beefsteak dinners in New York City. These were enormous fancy banquet events that, instead of serving the delicate shellfish and dubious fruit-and-gelatin-centric desserts that were de rigueur at the time, plied guests with prodigious amounts of beer and animal in the form of beef slabs while simultaneously maintaining an air of class and exclusivity. PETITION TO BRING BACK THE BEEFSTEAK DINNER! You guys can totally come to the one I’m co-hosting with Lilith’s poltergeist (séance willing) in a week, if you want. Anyway, I leave you now with this picture of me being a weird fish near a sign that says “weird fish” (all of these come from my Instagram, where you can follow me if you like pictures of half-assed piñatas and varying portraits of my own stupid miens).

The library near where I live in Greenpoint is the BEST PLACE. The corroborating evidence of this fact lies in my overdue fine balance, which I think right now is hovering menacingly somewhere around $30, although it could easily be more. I’m too scared to check.

Here’s a selection of some of the standout books I read during this last month, mostly courtesy of Kings County. Continue reading →

Subscribe.

You won't get an offer for the second year 50% off, because that's mathematically impossible when my blog is free, or any sort of gift upon subscription (always tote bags, in my experience), but you WILL get emails when I post.